Well, a lot of skilled Samus users don't really spam projectiles as much as her zair. And the Hylian Shield CANNOT reflect, only stop things. But what kind of a Samus user is gonna wait for you to be standing still when they shoot? They're gonna shoot when you're in the midst of something else, so that you're distracted. This takes the Hylian Sheld out of the question.
On topic: Her zair ***** yours, always. I dunno too much about her, but with a combination of zairs, uairs, and downb's, she really can be unpredictable.
Zamus is a secondary of mine, on the other hand. One thing is that her suit parts are deadly. They have good knockback, she can glide toss with them (rather far), and since they bounce, she can abuse throwing them downwards or dropping them after a short hop (as a Link main, this comes naturally ^_^). Whether thrown or dropped, they still can give a decent amount of damage. A few hits, maybe 3-4 from the parts, and that's 40% already. Mixing that in with bairs, uairs, dsmashes, utilts......you need to be careful.
I don't think you have to worry about her uair that much (your dair will go through it), but her upb on the ground and usmash can possibly go through your dair (I don't remember). Most of the time, usmash will be used when she's hyphen smashing. Her bair is a kill move, watch out for it. Her utilt can connect even if you're behind her, but fortunately if she misses, there's some lag, allowing a free fsmash from Link. Her dsmash has a short range, just don't get caught in it, and if you do, start DI'ing immediately. Her fsmash isn't really much of a threat. Her dtilt is another move to watch out for, it can really set her up for some aerial moves.
Her dash attack is good, and can be repeated numerous times. It can be combo'd into a utilt or a dtilt, both of which are trouble for you. Watch out for that.
Her sideb and downb can really, REALLY be a pain. Both can KO rather easily (fortunately Link is heavy). The sideb is relatively easy to see coming (she'll pull her arm back and then throw it out) so the best bet is to powershield it. If she downb's, just shield. That kick has ferocious knockback, and the knockback remains the same no matter what frame of the attack it is. What I mean is, Link's nair at the first frame and at the later frames differ. Her downb does not. She can control the direction of both the kick and the jump, so it really is versatile.
Zamus can spike with two moves. Her downb, if connected on the first frame, spikes. Watch out for this, Zamus can jump off the stage, use a downb, jump again, and upb to recover. She can also upb as many times as she wants, and can jump after using it if she hasn't used the jump already. Knowing this, her edgeguard game isn't bad. She can sideb, fair, bair, downb spike/kick, all with high chances of you dying. Link's recovery doesn't help much. Her other spike is the upb spike. You probably won't see this as often, but just be wary of it. She has to be underneath you and because it pulls you down, it spikes (but can be spike canceled).
Timing a zair edgeguard on her isn't easy. One thing, Zamus players like to mix up how they recover, whether it's a sideb from afar or waiting til underneath to use an upb, or just jumping via the downb back onto the stage. Also, if a person is edgehogging, she can go underneath and, in a desperate attempt, upb spike you to pull you along with her. If she's hanging on the ledge, be wary. She does NOT have to tilt back to use downb. She can use that move directly off the ledge. Also, since she's floaty, she can tilt back and use a uair/sideb/fair to get back on the stage from the ledge.
Her grabs can be a curse and a blessing to a Link player. For one thing, a missed grab by her has more lag than Link does for his. That's the blessing part. The curse part is that she slides rather far for her running grabs, she can grab people completely off the stage, and at low percents has a "chaingrab." Now, it's not a true chaingrab because it can be gotten out of easily, but if she grabs, expect a dthrow or an fthrow. If it's a dthrow, expect a fair or downb kick or uair or hyphen smash. The chaingrab is the fthrow. When she fthrows, using the knowledge that she slides as well as being able to grab people out of air allows her to grab again and fthrow again. Since Link is heavy, he'll land quicker and therefore, it's easier to spot dodge this than most characters.
So now the question is: How do you fight this?
You need to space well against her. By that, I don't mean using a lot of zairs. She's light, so your melee attacks are gonna send her flying at mid percentages. What I mean by spacing is, don't get caught sitting next to her. Her combos are ****, believe me when I say, she can REALLY rack up damage fast. Throw a boomerang when she's edgeguarding you as you try to recover, it can't really be DI'd as well as the explosions from bombs can, so it's a bit more reliable. Your smashes, all of them, are a threat to her. Use a boomerang on stage to space a lot, use some occasional zairs, and just use bombs ot rack up damage. Using a lot of AT's always helps.
^Hope all this helps, just trying to contribute.
I say this matchup is 55:45 Zamus' favor.
We'll move on to ZSS later I suppose.
